Oh man, I'm sorry if I did something to hurt your love affair. The 870 is a great shotgun in the field. "Fit" is always a bid deal with shotguns and the 870 and 1100 have something a bit magical about them when it comes to fit...the seem to "fit" most people very well. And then there's that intangible "feel" of a shotgun, and the 870 just has that in spades...they balance well, shoulder well, point well...they just FEEL very good in your hands; and that inspires confidence. But if you short stroke an 870 it really will bind that gun up but good. There is a "fix" for it that involves a flexible "tab" on the shell riser. When it binds, (IIRC) you just yank the forend hard, cycle the action and it will dump the round out of the chamber, and the bound up round, so you have to quickly cycle the action once more to get it fully back into action.

Now I don't have much experience with that "fix" so I'd recommend a bit of research. My first combat shotgun was a very nice Parkerized 870 with a mag extension and I loved that gun...until I ran into that issue for the second time. That's when I recalled that Mr. Murphy has a full time job just following me around, and he would make damned sure that if I were ever in a firefight with an 870 that he would make me short stroke that thing on the first round.

So I sold it, picked up a well used 26" JC Higgins Model 20 (Sears brand, it was the High Standard Flight King), which was a brilliant copy of the Remington model 31, and High Standard actually made the action even smoother than Remington did...absolute smoothest pump action shotgun I've ever seen in my life. Point the barrel north, hit the slide release and that action will just all open. Tilt it south just a tad and it would close right up. It's as if the action as mounted on greased up banana peel bearings. I lost the +2 in the magazine, but I gained speed and surefire reliability. I later upgraded to an Ithaca 37 Riot gun with a 20" barrel and 7+1 magazine...and I've regretted selling it every day since.

The Mossberg 500 series are VERY reliable but they really lack the "feel" of an 870 by a good margin. And when it comes to smooth pump actions...well, let's just say Mossberg kinda skipped that day in design school. The 500 series are not very smooth at all, but you can compensate for that by making YOU smoother through practice.

I have a mossberg 500 that's alot smoother than any 870 I've ever used.

I always liked the 870, but gave up on them during the latter years of the Clinton administration when Remington made it all but impossible to adapt one to tactical or defensive work. They refused for years to sell a gun with a shorter barrel and higher capacity magazine to the public, and they stubbornly insisted on complicating the process of doing the mag extension yourself. (Replacing the barrel, of course, was a snap).

The mag was brazed into the receiver, which made replacement difficult for the everyday DIYer, and the forward end of the mag tube featured two dimples that were impressed into the walls, making the addition of an extension problematic. The dimples had to be removed in one of three ways: pounding them out (from the inside of the tube), drilling them out, or grinding them off, none of which was without potential problems.

As I grew increasingly disgusted with Remington's "correctness", I tried a Mossy and was hooked. Besides their dedication to the defensive role, Mossbergs also featured the ambidextrous tang safety, and the finishes, particularly on the 590, were made for weather and abuse, not looks. Add in the ghost ring sights that come standard on some models, and the Mossbergs are hard to beat in my book.

Remington eventually saw the light and made their tactical and police models available to the public, but to this day when I pick up an 870 I don't think "bad guy"; I think "ducks".

Back from the cerakoter. Still am waiting on a magpul sga stock sling mount for a push button qd and waiting to install my tacstar plate and velcro with skd tactical 7 round card. I'll install the tacstar when time permits.

Finally got the rear stock relieved so I could pull the trigger group out while cleaning the gun. I installed the metal tacstar side plate, added industrial strength velcro and attached the 7 round Esstac shotgun card. And installed my soe gear single point bungee sling. It's now completed